Challenges Hiking the Trans Canada Trail in 2023

Trans Canada Trail #Hike4Birds Update

Over the past few weeks since the publication of an article in Reader’s Digest Our Canada magazine about our #Hike4Birds we have gotten a lot of emails from people asking whether we are on the Trans Canada Trail, where we are in the Arctic and how we are doing.  We want to thank everyone for their concern and curiosity.   While many have wondered if we simply were not posting due yet to the lack of WIFI connectivity in the arctic others have speculated that perhaps we had quit our coast to coast to coast trek all together.

Unfortunately the answer isn’t as simple as either of these answers.

Atlantic to Pacific, 2019-2022

As you know, on November 22 2022 we arrived at Clover Point in Victoria and officially concluded the 14,000 km long Atlantic to Pacific portion of the Great Trail. In 2023 we had planned to have hiked from Fort Saskatchewan Alberta north through British Columbia, the Yukon, and into the Arctic to get to Tuktoyaktuk Northwest Territories where we would have brought our long trek on the Trans Canada Trail to a conclusion. 

Unfortunately the challenges and realities of climate change in the last year have altered these plans.

Climate Change Realities

In early May of 2023 we set off to continue our hike into Northern Alberta.  We had monitored the usual notifications for localized forest fires in the north but were entirely unprepared for what awaited us.   However, even from the airplane – we could see entire mountain ranges, regions, and communities that we were set to trek through on fire.  Realizing that the situation was still evolving and growing we continued to watch the situation after landing.

As the days passed what we began to see was that the realities of climate change were clearly having more and more of an impact than ever before.  Not just upon wildlife and nature or distant nations but upon Canadian communities.  

By the week’s end, and from the safety of a hotel room in Fort Saskatchewan, we witnessed as natural disasters took place from coast to coast to coast.  There was flooding in Newfoundland, southern Nova Scotia, and Charlevoix in Quebec that begot crisis in regions that we had previously hiked through.  Ongoing droughts across the Prairies worsened, and historical forest fires in Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC, the North West Territories expanded to an unprecedented scale.   In addition to which the smoke from these widespread wildfires triggered air quality alerts across North America, spanned the Atlantic Ocean, and impacted countries as far away as Portugal, Spain and France. 

We knew then that something unprecedented was taking place.

Tough Year for the Trans Canada Trail

Unfortunately, as a result of forest fires and unseasonable flooding across the nation the infrastructure of the Trans Canada Trail began to collapse in almost every province.  Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia all reported either closing or loosing sections of the Great Trail.  

Forest Fire sign northern Canada

In Newfoundland the Wreckhouse region experienced floods and extensive trail damage.

In Nova Scotia the trails around Halifax experienced heavy flood damage. “The Rum Runners Trail … sustained significant damage due to heavy rainstorms and [is listed as] remain[ing] closed until further notice.” In addition to fires which spread from the Barrington Lake District further south endangering communities also undermined large sections of the national trail.  

CTV News, Southern Nova Scotia

In New Brunswick the new section of pathway to St. Andrews by-the-Sea was closed. 

In Quebec, the Charlevoix region was flooded and only limited trail usage was possible throughout the year.  

CTV News, Charlevoix Quebec

In Saskatchewan around Madge Lake forest fires lead to the “closure of the trail … between Ranger's Bay and the western park boundary due to fire mitigation logging and excessive trucking along the corridor.”

In southern Alberta, the towns of Olds and Irricana, both of which we hiked through in 2022 were hit by a violent tornado.   

In southern British Columbia the towns of Elkford, Sparwood, Kimberley, Penticton, Princeton and Ossoyos all dealt with forest fires.  The town of Kelowna, near the famed Myra Canyon stretch of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail witnessed as much of West Kelowna burned across Okanagan Lake.  Amid all of this the huge gap in the Trans Canada Trail (between Princeton through Hope to Chilliwack) that led us to trek regional roads and the insanely busy Coquihalla highway amid a forest fire in 2022 had yet to be repaired.  

CBC image, Forest Fires in Northern Canada

Meanwhile beyond the Atlantic-Pacific corridor in the north – where we were due to trek in 2023 – the number of forest fires seemed to grow exponentially day by day throughout the year.  

The situation became so tough across Canada that two people hiking across the nation on the Trans Canada Trail had to essentially abandon the national pathway and drive from green space to green space cutting across the prairies.  

In Northern Alberta in areas including Lesser Slave Lake and Peace River, a mere 195 km into what would be a 4000 km hike into the arctic were hundreds of out of control forest fires.  Beyond these problems the long stretch of the Dempster Highway, which serves as the major portion of the Trans Canada Trail heading north, had forest fires along it on both sides.  

Online Image Donnie Creek Fire

In particular the Donnie Creek Fire – the largest ever to affect British Columbia and which eventually destroyed a region larger than the entire province of Prince Edward Island was burning an area that we would have to hike through.  

Trans Canada Trail, Explore the Map British Columbia

Beyond the matter of the forest fires the trail towns that we would need to rely on for resupply were either under alert or being evacuated.   This unprecedented situation was so bad that the Calgary Herald would go on to note 2023 as “The Summer Canada Burned” having a “Wildfire Season that Shocked the World” describing the conditions as:

“...never before had Canada seen this many wildfires that were this large, this intense, and this fast.  The superlatives stacked up as flames gutted forests across almost all of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories throughout the summer.  Some provinces recorded the largest wildfires they had ever experienced.  Others recorded more fires than ever before.” (Monica Zurowski, The Summer Canada Burned)

These conditions would lead many including Canadian Geographic to declare that the Anthropocene Era (an epoch when humans irrevocably shaped the planet’s fate) had begun.  As the year progressed, according to Le Monde, by August 17th, 2023 approximately 13.7 million hectares of forest in Canada – much of it in the boreal – had burnt or was on fire.  By September 2023 that number would be at 18 million hectares.  By the end of the summer, the new normal of record setting temperatures, extreme weather and widespread natural disasters was clearly in control across the nation.  

CBC News Report on Historical Wildfires

As most would agree this was hardly the best of scenario to walk into the arctic wilderness for 100-200 days on the Great Trail. 

Decisions and Demands

We clearly had a decision to make... 

 

We did not want to set a bad example to others by hiking into a dangerous situation.  

In addition to which any attempt to trek into the affected areas could potentially endanger others or mean that they might have to divert resources to aid two people silly enough to hike into a region on fire.  

Ultimately however we personally had little desire to hike into a region on fire or that that we could not readily get out of in the event of danger.  

Having come to the conclusion that we were not doing to be able to continue on we were also informed by trail builders in several provinces that we should not return to the Trans Canada Trail in 2023.  During this time we were also contacted by a number of individuals and told that our blogs and commentary over the last 4 years had done a great deal of harm to the national trail and subsequently they (more or less) demanded that we not continue our trek.  

Trans Canada Trail, Explore the Map information

And so, with no possibility to safely proceed and little support to do so we stepped away from the Great Trail for the year.

Climate Change and the New Normal

Having walked across, visited and explored so much of this incredible country we are (as are you) more than aware that Canada’s natural wonders are the stuff of dreams and post cards.  However after a year of extreme temperatures, freak weather and historic wild fires there is no denying that climate change has begun to affect and impact almost every region in new ways. The events of the past year have led to tens of thousands of Canadians having to be evacuated.  They have closed community businesses and affected so large an area that it required an international effort including firefighters from South Africa, the UK, Australia and the United States to bring things under control.  The scale of our wildfires has been so large that they have impacted not only our own communities but also those in the United States and parts of Europe.   Despite these record breaking matters, in so many ways 2023 now seems less like an outlier and more like a harbinger that foreshadows what the new normal might look like.

Reflecting on 14,000 km

Over the course of the last year as we waited and watched we recognized how fortunate our first four years of hiking the Trans Canada Trail have been.  While we have been challenged by rainy weather, the occasional snow storm, and a few days of prairie mud we have never really had to deal with the extreme natural dangers which the country is now facing.  Indeed, perhaps the toughest we had was navigating through the forest fires from Princeton to Hope where the TCT had been destroyed – a challenging week that was off trail (as there was no path) along busy smoke filled highways.  Even those moments when we encountered a hurricanes, 40-50 degree temperatures and hail we were always blessed to be near somewhere that we could get inside. 

Heading north however there are no such guarantees and only a few places that we can take shelter or leave the trail if necessary.

Uncertain Future

 

#Hike4Birds 150th Presentation on Nature across Canada

So with all of this said, what is next for us?  Well with a national trail now broken from coast to coast to coast and the challenges of climate change upon us we honestly aren’t sure.

The reality is that the next 4000 + kilometers of the Trans Canada Trail is on the side of a highway.  This already unappealing situation means that we are largely reliant upon communities we as trek – the same communities that are still dealing with their own losses, natural disasters, and evacuations.   

Added to this is the fact that - as we have already discovered in Nova Scotia and PEI in 2019 and southern BC in 2022 - disaster recovery is both timely and expensive.  Supplies are sparse, lodgings are tough to find and everything is more costly for both local residents and travelers. 

Moving forward and northward also requires that there are no forest fires in our path and that there is actually a trail route to venture along – neither of these things are guaranteed in the coming years. Climate change has intensified the cycle of wildfires and given way to more extreme weather conditions.  

TCT Montreal

The simple fact is that we want to hike to the Arctic, we both want to see and share it.  But at the moment the unpredictability of climate change, its widespread impact in 2023 and the logistical realities which this situation has given way to means that trekking north will be both more challenging and more expensive than we had ever anticipated. 

In addition it seems that many would rather we did not continue our hike, our presentation of the Trans Canada Trail and our photographs of the country.  

 

Regardless, if we are able to continue we will, but at the moment the future is uncertain.

“I found out long ago…

It’s a long way down the holiday road…”

                                                    Lindsey Buckingham, Holiday Road lyrics